An agreed statement on Respect for Life

We, the members of the Orthodox-Roman Catholic
Bilateral Consultation in the United States, after extensive
discussions on the sanctity of marriage, feel compelled to
make a statement concerning the inviolability of human life
in all its forms.

We recognize that human life is a gift
of God entrusted to mankind and so feel the necessity of expressing
our shared conviction about its sacred character in concrete
and active ways. It is true that the Christian community's
concern has recently seemed to be selective and disproportionate
in this regard, e.g., in the anti-abortion campaign. Too often
human life has been threatened or even destroyed, especially
during times of war, internal strife, and violence, with little
or no protestation from the Christian leadership. Unfortunately,
the impression has frequently been given that churchmen are
more concerned with establishing the legitimacy of war or
capital punishment than with the preservation of human life.
We know that this has been a scandal for many, both believers
and unbelievers.

We feel constrained at this point in history
to affirm that the "right to life" implies a right
to a decent life and to full human development, not merely
to a marginal existence.

We affirm that the furthering of this goal
for the unborn, the mentally retarded, the aging, and the
underprivileged is our duty on a global as well as a domestic
scale.

We deplore in particular the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision failing to recognize the rights of the unborn--a
decision which has led to widespread indiscriminate early
abortion.

We affirm our common Christian tradition
with regard to the right of the unborn to life.

We acknowledge our responsibility to mediate
the love of Christ, especially to the troubled expectant mother,
and thus make possible the transmission and nurturing of new
life and its fully human development.

We urge our churches and all believers
to take a concrete stand on this matter at this time and to
exemplify this evangelical imperative in their personal lives
and professional decisions.